Victoria felt that the girl was trembling. She put her arms closer around her and drew her nearer.
"Millie, darling, what's the matter? Tell me. Aren't you happy? Tell me. I can't bear you to be unhappy. What does it matter what happens to a silly old woman like me? I've only got a few more years to live in any case. But you, so lovely, with all your life in front of you. . . . Tell me, darling——"
Millie shivered. "Never mind about me, Victoria. Things aren't easy. He won't tell me the truth. I could stand anything if only he wouldn't lie to me. I ought to leave him, I suppose—give him up. But I love him—I love him so terribly."
She did, what was so rare with her, what Victoria had never seen her do before, she burst into a passion of tears, sobbing—"I love him—and I oughtn't to—and every day I love him more."
"Oh, my dear—I'm afraid it is a great deal my fault. I should have stopped it before it went so far—but indeed I never knew that it was on until it was over. And I liked him—I see now that I was wrong, but I'm not perhaps very clever about people——"
"No, no," Millie jumped to her feet. "You're not to say a word against him. You're not indeed. It's myself who's to blame for things being as they are. I should have been stronger and forced him to take me to his mother. I despise myself. I who thought I was so strong. But we quarrel, and then I'm sorry, and then we quarrel again."
She smiled, wiping her eyes. "Dear Victoria, I'm not so fine as I thought myself—that's all. You see I've never been in love before. It will come right. It must come right——"
She bent forward and kissed her friend.
"I'll go down now and get on with those letters. You're a darling—too good to me by far."
"I'm a silly old woman," Victoria said, shaking her head. "But I do wish you liked the pink, Millie dear. It will be so nice at night with the lights—so gay."